During a 2025 survey among marketers worldwide, approximately ** percent reported plans to increase their use of YouTube for video marketing purposes in the near future. Similarly, ** percent said they would use Instagram more for that purpose. According to the same study, increased exposure and traffic were the leading benefits of social media marketing worldwide.

****** was the most used social media platforms to watch short-form videos among U.S. users, with approximately ** percent of respondents reporting to use the popular Chinese-developed social media as their preferred platform. ************** ranked second, with ** percent of respondents, while *************** ranked third. ******** ********* only gained the attention of approximately ***** percent of respondents.

In 2023, over 56 percent of the time spent on social media platforms for users in the United States was spent on social video activities. This represents an increase from the previous year, when the time spent engaging with social video among U.S. users was of around 53.3 percent, compared to 46.7 percent of the total social media time spent on other social network activities.

How much time do people spend on social media?

              As of 2024, the average daily social media usage of internet users worldwide amounted to 143 minutes per day, down from 151 minutes in the previous year. Currently, the country with the most time spent on social media per day is Brazil, with online users spending an average of three hours and 49 minutes on social media each day. In comparison, the daily time spent with social media in
              the U.S. was just two hours and 16 minutes. Global social media usageCurrently, the global social network penetration rate is 62.3 percent. Northern Europe had an 81.7 percent social media penetration rate, topping the ranking of global social media usage by region. Eastern and Middle Africa closed the ranking with 10.1 and 9.6 percent usage reach, respectively.
              People access social media for a variety of reasons. Users like to find funny or entertaining content and enjoy sharing photos and videos with friends, but mainly use social media to stay in touch with current events friends. Global impact of social mediaSocial media has a wide-reaching and significant impact on not only online activities but also offline behavior and life in general.
              During a global online user survey in February 2019, a significant share of respondents stated that social media had increased their access to information, ease of communication, and freedom of expression. On the flip side, respondents also felt that social media had worsened their personal privacy, increased a polarization in politics and heightened everyday distractions.

Video has become one of the most popular online formats, spanning from educational content to product reviews. As of the second quarter of 2025, music videos recorded the highest category reach, with almost half of internet users worldwide reporting to watch music videos online each week. Social video engagement In recent years, YouTube and TikTok have become two of the most important social media platforms for global users, as video content commands high levels of engagement. In 2024, users worldwide spent approximately 28.4 hours using the YouTube mobile app per month. Additionally, the leading hashtags used by content creators on TikTok have amassed billions of views: as of October 2025, the TikTok hashtags “fyp” or “for you page” had reached 55 and 35 billion post views, respectively. Watching content: what device do users prefer? In 2024, televisions were the most used devices for global viewers to watch video-on-demand (VOD), with 58 percent of respondents reporting using these devices. In comparison, 12 percent of respondents reported using smartphones. Age group and generation are factors impacting viewership habits and device preferences, as younger users appear to prefer using their smartphones to consume content. According to a March 2024 survey, U.S. users aged 18-34 years were more likely to watch video content on smartphones than on any other devices. By comparison, connected TVs were particularly popular for the online video audience aged 35 and older.

In 2024, YouTube counted approximately ** million monthly users aged between 35 and 54 in the United States. In comparison, U.S. viewers younger than ** amounted to around ** million. Meanwhile, TikTok's main audience was aged between 18 and 34 years, as approximately ** million users of that age visited the platform monthly. Facebook was particularly popular among users aged 35 and older, while less than ** million users younger than ** engaged with the platform on a monthly basis.

According to a survey on the most-viewed content formats on social media conducted in Indonesia in June 2023, approximately ** percent of Indonesian respondents stated that they enjoyed watching TikTok videos. Meanwhile, ** percent of them stated that they enjoyed watching Instagram posts.   Exploring video content trends and advertising impact in Indonesia  From music to video tutorials, videos have become the most popular visual medium on the internet. In 2023, almost every Indonesian watched online videos weekly. Video advertising, whether from trusted brands or influencers, has also increased in recent years and caught consumers’ attention. A recent study revealed that the most influential advertisements for Indonesians were those made by well-known brands compared to influencers. In addition, Indonesian consumers will be more likely to click on ads on social media when the content is relevant to them. The changing face of social media: Trends in Indonesia's online landscape From the era of Vine to the rise of TikTok, short video memes became the core of social media content. These memes have since been adopted by other popular social media platforms such as Instagram, YouTube, and Facebook. As of 2023, it is estimated that more than *** million people are TikTok users in Indonesia. However, TikTok’s dominance does not overshadow the significance of Facebook. Although Facebook users are gradually declining in Indonesia, it still has the largest market share among social media platforms, especially on mobile phones and tablets.

Over ** percent of community managers in France used Instagram as their preferred social media network for publishing video content, according to the survey conducted in 2023. Facebook appeared as the second favorite go-to video publishing platform, chosen by ** percent of respondents. YouTube and LinkedIn followed with respectively ** percent and **** percent of community managers reporting to have used the networks for posting videos.

According to a survey of global social media users conducted in August 2021, ************ were more popular among users aged between 16 and 38 years, with approximately ** percent of respondents reporting to watch videos with a duration of less than four minutes. The popularity of online social videos ********* among Baby boomers, with ** percent of respondents in this age demographics reporting to watch short videos, while only ** percent reported watching long videos on social media.

As of July 2023, short videos were the most favourite social media activity among Generation Z adults in the United States, as more than 60 percent of respondents reported to have watched them. Conversely, approximately 43 percent of Gen Z adults watched livestream videos. Internet users in the United States liked to watch short videos on different platforms, but TikTok was the most popular.

According to a survey of internet users in the United States, as of November 2021, ******* was the preferred social media platform to watch short-form videos, with around ** percent of respondents reporting to use the popular video platform to watch this type of content. ******** followed, with more than *** in ** respondents indicating they watch short-form videos on the platform. TikTok, which introduced only in February 2022 the possibility for users to upload videos up to ** minutes long, was indicated by ** percent of respondents as their preferred platform to watch short-form video content.

Social network video advertising spending in the United States was projected to amount to ***** billion U.S. dollars in 2021, marking an increase from the previous year's value of ***** billion. Ad spending was expected to further increase in 2022 and 2023, reaching an estimated ***** billion in the latter year.

According to a survey among internet users conducted in Vietnam by Decision Lab, as of the third quarter of 2024, TikTok was the leading social media app for watching short videos, as stated by ** percent of the respondents. Meanwhile, ** percent of them used YouTube for the same purpose.

In 2025, short-form digital video advertising revenues worldwide will reach an estimated ** billion U.S. dollars, up from approximately ** billion dollars recorded a year earlier. According to the same forecasts, ****************************************** and ************* will be the fastest-growing ad regions in 2025.

In 2023, video ads on social media in Europe attracted an investment of **** billion euros, up from *** billion a year earlier. Non-video ads (e.g. static display) garnered **** billion euros.

Short-form videos were rated as the best type of social media content for finding new products in a global 2024 study. This was the view of more than ********* of consumers. Similarly, long-form videos, such as YouTube reviews, were another popular type of content on social sites. Photo posts with captions came in third place, as ** percent of respondents found them useful for discovering products.

According to a survey of French consumers conducted in 2023, the number of respondents using social media and social video platforms daily correspondents to approximately ** percent of the French digital population. Of these, ** percent of respondents reported using platforms such as Snapchat, TikTok, or Instagram multiple times per day, while around ** percent reported using them every day or almost every day.

Every year billions of dollars are spent on advertising on social media in the United States. In 2022, the amount reached ** billion U.S. dollars, and included paid advertising on social networks as well as games and applications on social media. By 2025, advertisers are expected to spend over ** billion dollars on promoting their products on social networks. Facebook commands the lion’s share of these expenditures (more than ** percent), followed by LinkedIn and Pinterest with * and * percent respectively. Social network advertising – a closer look   Studies show that a little over ** percent of U.S. companies are and will be using social media for marketing purposes. In 2017, social messaging and video were thought to be the trends of the future in relation to social media advertising and believed to have the biggest effect on marketing strategies. Lo and behold, advertising spending on social video has been growing ever since, and is expected to amount to nearly ** billion U.S dollars in 2021. Even in this respect, Facebook has the lead, especially when it comes to influencer marketing. In fact, all tiers of influencers - from microinfluencers to celebrities - post the majority of their videos on Facebook. The second choice of platform to share their videos is YouTube, which despite being 'the' video sharing platform is not as popular yet among influencers most probably due to smaller user reach.

With approximately 1.6 billion video views in March 2019, LADbible was ranked first among the most watched Facebook video publishers. Second-ranked UNILAD generated 1.6 billion video views. Both social news and entertainment publishers are owned by the British media company The LADbible Group Ltd.

Social video consumption Watching a video on the likes of Facebook or Instagram is now part of everyday social media usage. Whilst YouTube is as popular as ever, it is no longer the only source out there for online video viewers. With companies and influencers utilizing video for marketing purposes on Instagram, concertgoers broadcasting the event to their friends via Facebook Live and Twitter users endlessly retweeting their favorite vlogs, video content on social is here to stay. Social media is an important channel for video producers and many traditional media brands have started to generate content specifically to be distributed and discussed on social platforms. News, ads, viral moments, celebrity vlogs, sporting clips – the variety of video clips on social media is seemingly endless and users are highly engaged with video content on Facebook. As of February 2018, Facebook ranked first among social video platforms, accounting for a significant share of social media video posts across all tiers of influencers. The network accounted for 50 percent of social video posts by celebrity influencers with more than 20 million followers.

Mobile social video
A significant chunk of social video is consumed via mobile. One of the most popular mobile video apps is TikTok, which has over 3.7 million monthly active users in the United States. TikTok is a mobile app for creating and sharing short videos, which also can be edited in-app. The app merged with Musical.ly in August 2018, thus gaining access to the teenage online user market in the United States. Popular types of TikTok videos include dances, comedy sketches or lip-synchs to songs. The platform is frequently considered the spiritual successor to the now-defunct mobile video app Vine, and popular TikTok videos are frequently shared across other social networks.

In 2024, video accounted for **** percent of social media advertising spending in the United States. The source projected the share would increase to ** percent by the end of 2026.